


worries

by insufferableknowitall



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Canon Compliant, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, Mutual Pining, OTP Feels, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23868220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insufferableknowitall/pseuds/insufferableknowitall
Summary: takes place just before the break-in to the ministry in book 7She was worried about obtaining hair of the Ministry workers they were going to transform into, she was worried about giving themselves away, she was worried about quite literally walking into the heart of the beast with the most wanted boy in Wizarding Britain, she was worried about getting past security into the Ministry, worried about finding the locket, and what if the locket wasn’t there?And, the worry she kept to herself rather than share with Ron: the pressing matter of falling in love with her best friend.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 1
Kudos: 38





	worries

**Author's Note:**

> (apologies but I really am terrible at proof-reading my own work)

This was getting out of control. 

Had she agreed to pour over their notes and poorly drawn maps with him? Of course. It had been her idea in the first place. But she hadn’t expected him to sit so close, knees touching, arms brushing, hadn’t expected the concentrated expression on his face to somehow make her less concentrated, the furrow of his eyebrows somehow softening her own. 

“Hermione?”

“Hmm?” Her own voice sounded distant. She shook her head. 

“I asked you a question.”

“Sorry.”

He grinned, basking for a moment in Hermione’s uncharacteristic distractedness, then repeated himself. “Harry’s checking the entrance on Carnaby Street today, right?”

“Yes. Yes, Carnaby. He’s supposed to be staking out that alleyway, checking for sure what time the little squat man appears there because he’s been the most inconsistent and we really need to pin down what time he arrives each day of the week - “

“Merlin, slow down Hermione, can’t keep up over here.” He set down his quill and turned to look at her. Their faces were nearly inches apart; she lost her entire train of thought. 

“You okay?” he asked, the little furrow appearing in his brow again. 

“I’m nervous,” she said, or rather, whispered, despite it being only the two of them (and Kreacher) alone in Grimmauld Place. Flustered, she glanced back down at the map Ron had been sketching. “This is dangerous.”

“Which part? The breaking into the Ministry part? Illegally using Polyjuice Potion? Or just the whole traveling with Harry Potter, hunting Horcruxes stuff?” He smiled at her, a laugh on the verge of escaping his mouth, but she continued to frown at the paper. 

“C’mon,” Ron said as he leant forward to force her to make eye contact with him. “We know it’s dangerous. Completely bollocks, if you ask me. But that’s why we have all this, right?” He gestured at the papers scattered across the table. “We’ll keep preparing ‘til we’re good and ready. I still think you should stay behind, you’re - ”

“Oh, don’t,” she snapped back and shot him down with a glare. 

“Fine,” he said, though she knew he hadn’t completely dropped the subject. He paused for a moment, clearly warring with himself internally because he wanted to push to topic further. Then, he sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and picked up the quill again. 

“Tell me what you’re worried about,” Ron finally spoke, “We’ll make a list, and then we’ll, I dunno, focus on that stuff. So we can get it all sorted out before we make our big Ministry debut, yeah? Then, you’ll stop worrying. And if I'm lucky you’ll stop biting my head off over stupid things - “

“I have not been biting your head off!”

He raised his eyebrows and she couldn’t help but laugh. Just earlier that morning she’d snapped at him and Harry for leaving a pile of clothes out _(“We should be packed, all the time! We don’t know when we’ll have to leave, when they’ll find out about the plan!”)_. Her shrillness had awoken Mrs. Black’s portrait. 

“Fine, maybe a little.”

“Tell me what you’re worried about.”

So, she did. She was worried about obtaining hair of the Ministry workers they were going to transform into, she was worried about giving themselves away, she was worried about quite literally walking into the heart of the beast with the most wanted boy in Wizarding Britain, she was worried about getting past security into the Ministry, worried about finding the locket. She was worried about Harry, because his scar had been bothering him, worried that Voldemort would peer into Harry’s mind at any moment, and still boggled as to how those Death Eaters had found them so quickly in the cafe just after the wedding. 

And, there was the increasingly pressing matter that she kept to herself rather than share with Ron: she was, without a doubt, falling in love with her best friend. That’d been a worry of hers for years, really, but lately, it seemed that each day she somehow fell more in love, grew more distracted, and now he sat so close to her, all the time, and when her mind wasn’t running circles about all the ways their plans could go wrong, her mind was running circles around him. 

“That all?” he asked with a twitch of his lips when Hermione had finished laying out her grievances. She laughed, felt herself turn slightly red. 

“I’m just worried that it...that it won’t work out,” she admitted. 

“What won’t work out? The Ministry stuff?”

“All of it.” 

_Even the part about falling in love with her best friend._

“Me too,” he admitted quietly. “But, the three of us, we can...we can do anything, right? Harry’s escaped You-Know-Who so many times and you’re the most brilliant person I know.” Hermione’s cheeks and Ron’s ears turned the same beet red color at his words. 

“You’re brilliant too, Ron,” she said. 

He laughed, though she’d meant it seriously. 

“Promise me something?” she asked, even more quietly.

“Anything,” he said, much too quickly - it made her heart flutter, made his cheeks turn red and his eyes avert. 

“Promise me we’ll be okay.”  
“Sure, Hermione. We’ll be okay.”

She looked at him and thought, _maybe this is the moment_ \- his face was inches from hers, his cheeks were flushed, she could practically count his freckles and the look in his eyes was so sincere, so full of something unspoken - 

“I’ve got news, and you won’t like it.”

Harry’s voice broke through their reverie and at once, their eyes snapped away from one another and they looked up in time to see Harry traipse through the kitchen door, newspaper in hand. 

Close together at the end of the kitchen table, their knees still touched.


End file.
